Hunters often plant food plots to provide feed and nutrition to the game they are hunting, such as deer and wild turkey. The planting process typically involves the use of a tractor and at least two of its standard implements: a cultivating implement, such as a disk harrow, to break up the soil and a broadcasting implement, such as a broadcast spreader, to disperse seed and fertilizer into the turned-up earth.
Such cultivating and broadcasting implements may also be used by farmers to plant crops, and the invention disclosed herein works equally well in farming applications. For purposes of this application, reference is made to a disk harrow as an exemplary cultivating implement and a broadcast spreader as an exemplary broadcasting implement. The invention disclosed herein works equally well with many other combinations of cultivating and broadcasting implements.
Prior to the invention disclosed herein, a typical process for planting food plots or other crops using a tractor, a cultivating implement, and a broadcasting implement required the following steps: attach the cultivating implement to the tractor using the tractor's standard means for implement connection, or three-point hitch; operate the tractor to pull the cultivating implement over an area of ground to cultivate it and expose previously submerged soil; disconnect the cultivating implement from the tractor; attach a broadcasting implement to the tractor using the tractor's three-point hitch; connect the tractor's power take-off (“PTO”) to the broadcasting implement; add desired constituents to the broadcasting implement, such as seed and fertilizer; operate the tractor and broadcasting implement to broadcast the constituents over the turned up soil; disconnect the broadcasting implement from the tractor; reattach the cultivating implement to the tractor using the tractor's three-point hitch; and operate the tractor to pull the cultivating implement over the cultivated area to cover up the seed and fertilizer. The last two steps of the process may often be accomplished by other means, but, as a practical matter, the cultivating implement is often used both to disturb the soil initially and later to cover up the broadcasted constituents.
The process for disconnecting the cultivating implement and attaching the broadcasting implement, and vice versa, is not an easy one to accomplish, especially out in the field, where it may be difficult to find flat, solid terrain to facilitate the changing out of the implements (and lining up the connection points of the tractor's three-point hitch with the corresponding connection points on the implement to be attached). Moreover, if multiple locations are to be planted, the planting process requires either (1) changing out the implements a large number of times, which makes the planting process more time consuming, runs the risk of losing the means for connecting the respective implements to the tractor (such as hitch pins), requires additional labor; and increases the likelihood of damaging equipment or injuring the operator(s); or (2) traveling to each planting location three separate times—one to cultivate the soil (with the cultivating implement), one to disperse seed and fertilizer (with the broadcasting implement), and one to cover up or bury the seed and fertilizer in the soil (with the cultivating implement). This latter process adds time to the planting process, causes more wear and tear on the tractor and respective implements, and is more expensive to the operator in terms of fuel costs and wear and tear on equipment.
The invention disclosed herein eliminates these problems by enabling its user to operate a tractor with both a cultivating implement and a broadcasting implement, such as a disk harrow and a broadcast spreader, connected to the tractor and serving their respective functions at the same time. This arrangement eliminates the need to switch out implements repeatedly or the requirement to visit planting sites multiple times, thereby saving time, money, labor, and wear and tear on equipment. The invention disclosed herein further increases the efficiency of the planting process by enabling one to operate a tractor with multiple conventional cultivating and broadcasting implements in combination, connected to the tractor and serving their respective functions at the same time.